Burning Cracking Clouds
by Lora Perry
Summary: The three part series found all together. Alex Karev, the moments that made him, the moments that define him. From running away from home at six, to cancer at seventeen, to drunk nights in college, to this final moment, dying on Grey's floor, alone.
1. Cracked Clouds

**TITLE: **Cracked Cloud

**AUTHOR: **Lora Perry

**RATING: **PG-13

**WARNINGS: **cursing, reference to abuse and drunk driving

**PAIRINGS:** none

**WORD COUNT: **1,142

**DISCLAIMER: **Don't own, don't sue.

**SUMMARY: **"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live." Alex was a conundrum of sorts. Here, glimpses at his life from when he was 5 to 28.

When Alex was 5, he ran all the way to the next door neighbor's house. Ms. Johnson has laughed her old person laugh, and made cookies. He giggled with her, as she let him measure out the sugar for her gooey creations. When his father's car rumpled into the driveway, shots of panic and fear ran across his young face. Ms. Johnson –God bless her- didn't notice, and packaged up the cookies for Alex to bring home.

When Alex was 14, he was recruited onto the high school football and wrestling teams. There, the coaches taught him about perseverance, loyalty to teammates, and to never show emotions on the playing field. The senior players took the growing boy under their "tutelage" and there he grew as well. The quarterback taught him how to smoldered women (then, just girls) with his smile. The wide receiver, however, showed him the plays to get into a cheerleader's skirt using only his eyes and a lemon.

When Alex was 15 he lost his virginity. He didn't call Scott, the quarterback, or tell the whole (exaggerated) story to Teagen the wild wide receiver. He did pay a visit to their graves, but he didn't stay long. Drunk driving was a bitch, as was losing states that year.

When Alex was 18, he attacked his father, took all the meager money out of his savings account, and headed to college. He hasn't spoken a word to his father since. He wrote his mother a five sentence letter when he graduated, but other than that, the only words exchanged were those uttered only to the wind and to the sea.

When Alex turned 21, his roommate got his completely wasted. Shots of tequila, Oban, beer chugs, keg stands, more tequilla, this was Alex's moment. They managed to get Alex so incredibly drunk that the karaoke stand was the best place in the world that evening. They sang off-key songs for three hours until someone called him a cab. He made the cab stop at a shady tattoo parlor, and there he had something drawn upon the surface of him. It was deep and meant something to his apparently stone heart. When his buddies asked though, Alex smiles that smile. He tells this story of a hot chick with way too much flexibility. He says he was drunk. He says he doesn't remember. His frat brothers laugh.

When Alex was 22, he graduated from the University of Iowa. Someone told him that it was a huge deal. Alex only put on his shit eating smile and played along. That night, he slept with a woman, Kristen or Katharine; he really didn't stop to ask. And when her playful tongue came across the inch and a half scar, she questioned it. He told her, with all his bravado that it was from a knife fight with a big ass fucker. She smiles, and tells him then he deserves an award. Alex, a college graduate, never says that that fucker was his father, and he was eight at the time.

When Alex was 26 he graduated from Medical school. His frat brothers threw a grade-A party and there was booze, drugs and girls for everyone. He spent five minutes alone in his room, trying to find the right words to say, to write, to eternalize in a letter that he was trying to send. Mary-Anne, a girl with an innocent name and a sinful past, stood in his doorway with two beers, awaiting his exodus from his self imposed exile. Alex, medical school alumni, fingers a ring in his pocket. But before the night is over, Mary-Anne is seen with another man her tounge down his throat and his hand down her skirt, and Dr. Karev just puts it up there on his wall of all the people who've left him alone in the world.

When Alex was 28, he knows something is wrong. He knows it is not normal to lie on the bathroom floor, throwing up blood. He knows, he went to medical school for all this god dam knowledge, and he is powerless. He is dying, slowly, on this floor that he should have cleaned at least two weeks ago.

He can see where the missing toothbrush of Meredith has been hiding, and that makes him laugh. That laugh, though, only brings about more pain, more lancing lightning through his stomach. More blood pollutes the floor. That's all Alex was ever good for, turning white floors red. His body has become his enemy, just like his father, and sweet little Anne-Mary…or was it Mary-Anne? Alex can't remember. He shakes. His body feels like it's on fire, like it's been doused in the same god dam water that Ava and Meredith dealt with a lifetime ago.

Alex wonders, like all men do before they die how his body will be found. If Izzie will walk in, expecting to snatch the last tampon only to find his blood and lifeless body. He imagines (for that's all he can do now, play with his fucking imagination, and throw up more blood) her _staring_, almost in disbelief, because Izzie, she's just that naïve. He knows, because he is dying, and because this type of epiphany shit does happen, that it'll take a minute for it to register. Her voice will go soft, and then she'll scream. She'll scream to an empty house if she has too. It always makes her feel better to scream. She'll do the doctor stuff, CPR and the like. She'll try to diagnose him while trying to keep his worthless ass alive. She was always a god dam better doctor than he was. _She was always a better god dam human that he was._

Maybe cynical Meredith will find him. Fuck that only makes him laugh (the pain this time, that lancing pain that once was, is dull. Dr. Karev knows that is a fucking bad sign. Alex toils in oblivion). Cynical Meredith, who would find some way for this to be her fault; Alex really hopes his ghost stays around to watch that.

Alex knows he's fucked.

And when he hears the front door open, and then close, he tries to scream. All that comes out is a pitiful croak. He tries over, and over again, begging someone to just end the pain. He wonders if their bladders are all empty, if they stopped on their way home, if they didn't order the second drink, so they wouldn't have to use the restroom. He begs for the girls to have to fix their hair, to want to brush their teeth. And as the last fucking moments of consciousness leave him, he really wishes that someone with a gentle heart and soothing words will call his mom.


	2. Only Misty

**TITLE: **Only Misty

**AUTHOR: **Lora Perry

**RATING: **PG-13, T

**WARNING: ** talks of blood, nothing to graphic

**PAIRINGS: **blink it, you'll miss it Addison/Alex

**DISCALIMER: **Don't own, don't sue

**WORD COUNT: **1222

**SUMMARY: **Her hands were stained with the blood of a man who, though she had lived with for more than a year, she had no real knowledge of.

Izzie wonders what death means to those who have died. What death means to those who've played chicken with it, balancing hazardously on the edge of it, tempting Death with its presence. Izzie wonders what Death does to little girls with blue eyes and old men with gentle smiles.

Are all treated to a welcoming buffet? Do they take pictures; does everyone carry id? Are there apartment buildings, lined up by generation of death or by nationality or by race? Do old, deteriorated women transform as they enter, turning back into vivacious young girls with the mischievous eyes and tumbling waves of blonde, bouncing hair?

Or is it just darkness for all of eternity? Izzie can't help but shiver at the idea of being lost in eternal darkness. Of never hearing laughter again; fresh and straight from the vine, giggles that bubble up unconfined.

Her hands are red; red with blood and guilt and sorrow. Thoughts are getting so overly jumbled up in her head. Is she spinning or standing still? Is she even standing? All she can remember is blood, and dirty tile and a whispered, "…Alex?" It was like she couldn't comprehend what was happening in front of her war wearied eyes. She was a doctor for goodness sakes! And all she could do is stand there, her feet starting to waver.

"Alex?"

Meredith can remember the first time she saw blood. She was three, and she had managed to go down the green slide at the park wrong. For her revolutionary ideas about sliding, she was rewarded with a bloody scraped elbow and a smothering father. She can remember staring at this deep burgundy seeping out of _her._ After the longest moments of her life, she had screamed. Terrified. Her father has hushed her and cleaned her all up.

She never slid down the green slide again, preferring the yellow or the blue. If her parents had paid more attention, they might have caught the early psychological scarring. As it was, they never noticed.

The first time she saw a dead body she was eight and her mother had left her alone in her office. She had grown bored and wandered away from the plush carpet and coloring book. She was no longer a child. She had given up coloring with naptimes. She had wandered the hallways, the nurses and doctors completely oblivious to the small, mousy girl weaving in between their rushed paths. In retrospect, it amuses Meredith that no one stopped her. But like all other times, her presence was unnoticed in the grand scheme of things.

The body was old, and grey. His eyes were closed, but his lips were blue. Blue like the color of her room. Blue like her favorite teddy bear. Blue like her favorite cup.

When she came home that day, after her mother was done doctoring, and Meredith had returned to the office (unnoticed that she had left in the first place), she had demanded changes. She told her mother that she was a _girl_. She needed a pink, red or yellow room not blue. She was 8! She wasn't a child. Her bear was in the trash by the time the night was over. And her favorite blue cup, the one she used whenever she was sick, ended up on the floor in a million little pieces. An accident, she swears. Her mother hadn't even suspected. Her mother hadn't even questioned it.

Meredith may have been scarred, but nothing to the comparison to laughing as she came home to work, only to have Izzie go into the bathroom and start to scream. Nothing compares to the sight of the _blood_ and the lifeless body of her roommate on the floor. Nothing will ever hold a torch to the feeling of the vividly red liquid seeping into her pants as she kneeled.

She has never done CPR and cried at the same time.

_There's always a first time for everything._

Izzie screamed at her. She screamed at Alex. She screamed at the 911 operator. She yelled at the paramedics for not going fast enough. (she doesn't know how she knows, but Meredith knows that it took them three minutes and fifty six seconds to get to her house. But that was already ten minutes after they had come home to this, this most traumatic of settings. And God knows how long since he had started to bleed.)

The paramedics are up the stairs and taking over for her faster than she can blink. Izzie has stopped screaming, and now she is quiet. Too quiet, but even Meredith can only deal with one crisis at a time. She tells the paramedics to take him to Seattle Grace. They respond with a rapid fire of questions. Was Alex allergic to any medications? Was he taking any medications? Were there any underlying medical conditions? She frowned, unable to answer anything. She looks down at the unresponsive, unconscious man on her bloody floor. How does she not know anything about him? Can she even be considered his friend? She realizes that she doesn't even know his middle name or where his home town is.

She swears when this is all over. If (no. no. WHEN) Alex gets better she'll ask all the important questions. If he's allergic to seafood and who was the first girl he kissed. What he misses most about home: mom's cooking or dad's jokes. She'll ask about his college days. About that tattoo of his, the one that always come uncovered when he runs around the house, in a towel, looking for his razor. Meredith is the worst of friends, but she will amend it all. When (not IF) Alex gets better.

She feels better though-knows it's horrible but she does- when Izzie shakes her head as well; she doesn't know anything either.

Meredith gets up, her knees cracking, her hands smearing blood across her wallpapered wall. Says she'll check the boys' bathroom across the house for any meds. The paramedics only give her a glance. Tell her they can't wait. Tell her they need to go; now.

Alex is the kind of pale that the man from twenty some odd years ago was. His blood is that of the same burgundy that fell from her elbow when she was young. And as the paramedics speed out of her driveway, she turns to Izzie. Izzie's hands are covered in blood. Meredith's knees are soaked through, her hands smothered by it. There's a streak of red by Izzie's eye, cause by uncontrollable tears and the instinct to hide them.

_They are both crying, standing in their driveway, looking like rejects from a bad horror film._

The red and blue lights diminish into the night, and Izzie and she collapse to the ground.

They'll have to call George.

They'll have to call Bailey. Have her wake up, and get to the hospital.

_Izzie will call Addison, when no one's looking._

But for now;

They cry.


	3. Burning Sky

**TITLE: **Burning Sky**  
AUTHOR: **Lora Perry**  
RATING:** R, M**  
WARNING:** Swearing. Lots of swearing. Did I mention swearing?**  
PARINGS:** blink it, you'll miss it Addison/Alex**  
DISCLAIMER:** Don't own! Don't sue!**  
WORD COUNT: **2055**  
SUMMARY:** Alex always got off so lucky. It was offseason, or his dad was unable to stand, or Meredith was really good at CPR. He's wondering when his luck is just going to run out.

When he was little, Alex had a doctor named Mr. Onser. He, being a doctor and of higher learning than Alex, never really grasped the idea that his numerous bruises and assorted scraps over the years weren't always straight out of the "boys will be boys" mantra he proudly said with every visit. Even Alex at the tender age of 6, was able to grasp that sometimes, daddies weren't supposed to do was his daddy would do. Even Alex, with the blonde hair that more often than not was in his eyes, knew that what daddy drank sometimes was not water, or orange juice. Even Alex, who his mother always told teachers had some "discipline" problems, knew that things at home just were never quite right.

His doctor, the great Mr. Onser, (Mr., not Dr., so the kids wouldn't be afraid. Alex thought that was total bull shit. He still gave out shots. It wasn't the name the freaked the kids out asshole, it was the needles) was an idiot at best. Young Alex never really figured out how the man had achieved his medical degree, but he figures it's because by the time he got to experience the wonder of having him as a doctor, the man was old enough to actually have created medicine. That was always Mr. Onser's problem when Alex was young. He always believed so fully in the way things had been when he, himself, was young. When rainbows and butterflies and cowboys all got together and had high tea. There was no room in the great Mr. Onser's mind for the idea that a father would deliberately smack his six year old son hard enough across the face to leave a bruise. He'd always give such a smile to his mother and say "oh, don't you worry Mrs. Karev. Sometimes boys will be boys. They get into tuffles. Isn't that right, young Alex?" He'd always ruffle Alex's hair at the point, and try to pull off a Santa Clause laugh, which never really ended up working in his favor.

It's Dr. Onser, who later, is more docile when he talks to Alex in slow murmurs about his test results. He doesn't mention the "boys will be boys" when he tells Alex, at the ripe age of 17 that the blood in his semen isn't some nasty version of The Clap that the whore Vanessa gave him. The dull ache in his groin for the past week isn't indigestion.

"Alex." He says, and really at this point, Alex is fucked as shit scared. Because this guy is supposed to be warning him against unprotected sex and have a stern lecture face on. This guy should no way in hell have this look of pure sympathy and pity on his face. No fuckin' way.

"Alex." He sighs again. Like this is all his burden to bear, like it's not 17 year old Alex, wrestling star and ladies man's burden. Alex just really wishes he would try to make the Santa Clause laugh, 'cause that would be so fuckin' sweet at this point.

"I'm sorry Alex. Your test results show testicular cancer." Alex is mute for what seems like hours. Dr. or Mr. Onser, Alex really doesn't give a flying shit anymore, continues on, talking about amazing advances in technology and how it has a 95% cure rate, and how lucky they are that they caught it so early. Alex's hearing is going in and out in inverse synchrony to his vision; he can see clearly and not hear a thing. He can hear the doctor going on, but he can't see the old man's white beard. His whole entire body is so fucked up scared at this point that it can't even get its shit together.

Alex would really, really like it, if the great Mr. Onser would just say "boys will be boys" and smile, and leave, and this can all just be a lie.

Lucky for Alex, it is offseason. He goes through all the shit he has to go through, has poison injected into his veins and all the fuckin' jazz. By the time senior year wrestling comes around he's almost a hundred percent. He wows the scouts from all over the nation, and even gets their heartstrings tugged by his tale of being a cancer survivor. He signs his letter of intent with only his coach in the background. His mom is too far gone these days to care. His dad never cared.

For the next years at college and then Med School, Alex doesn't think of Dr. Onser. Well, once or twice when he sees needles up close and personal, but those are in-between times. He thinks about the cancer scare his freshman year of Med, and how it fucked him over until the test results came back clean. He almost drove the entire way home just so Dr. Onser could be the one to tell him the cancer was back. But there wasn't time. And it wasn't needed. Alex was fine. Alex was in remission. And Alex would stay in remission _so help him God._

After he graduates from the Medical School he makes a pit stop in his home town before heading out to Seattle for the next three or four years. He stops by the old high school and hugs his coach, thanks him for more than he can express. His old coach's eyes are soft and wet and filled with untold emotion when he tells Alex, who's no longer a boy just how proud he is of him. Alex laughs and hugs the man who was more of a father than the one who he's actually got.

When he stops in the general store off of Main Street for gas and water he sees Nora Onser, Dr. Onser's daughter headed down to the used book store. He runs to catch her and she hugs him in surprise. She teases him, asking where the small Alex her father used to stitch up after playground fights had gone. When Alex asks, though, where her father is, her smile falters and her eyes grow dim. She says, platonically, as if to express any true emotion would be too much, that he passed away the spring beforehand. That he has passed away in his rocking chair by the window near the old baseball field where he could always watch the home grown boys play on Friday nights. "Boys will be boys, Alex." Her smile is pained, and he knows that the pain she is feeling will never fade, will never stop. "Boys will be boys."

The fuzzy feeling is the first thing that Alex notices when he wakes up. That and the somewhat damaging, confusing thought of why that dear old Dr. Onser is not here with him, waiting for him to wake up after a round of Chemo. Before his thoughts can get un-jumbled, and he can realize just where he is, and who he is, and why he is where he is, Izzie and Bailey walk through the door.

Oh.

He's forgotten. He's not 17 with a fucked up home life and his "chemo buddy" his old doc. He's 28. He's the bad ass doctor with no soul. He'd be Satan if the girl with the red hair and his heart hadn't already taken that name from him. He's Dr. Karev, the man with no friends, and who, he can faintly remember, no blood. He recalls throwing it all up.

"Hey." Izzie tentatively sits down on the edge of his bed, as if too much vibration would break him. Oh. Hospital. He notices the IV, the blood being infused (figures, he only puked out half of his supply), the heart monitor.

"Hey." His voice comes out hoarse, like used sand paper. He's still confused, but coming around. "What happened?"

Izzie quirks an eyebrow at him as Bailey murmurs in the background of never taking on Interns ever again. Neither he nor Izzie comment on the fact that they are no longer her inters. It's less freighting this way. "You don't remember what happened?"

"I remember the blood." At the Bailey throws up her hands.

"You. You, stupid stupid man! Did you not think that blood _being thrown up_ was a bad thing!? You are a doctor. Is it normal, Dr. Karev, for an otherwise healthy man to be throwing up blood?" She sighs, more frustrated at the sight of one of _her_ inters being rolled in on a gurney than angry. "My god, do you not think!" Done with her tirade, done with trying to pretend like these people have not completely and utterly permeated into her life and body, she looks down at him. Her face softens. Her hands, which just moments before had been flailing, come to rest on his needle free arm. "You, Dr. Karev, need to stop, and listen to your body once in a while. No more of this throwing up blood on the floor of Grey's bathroom. You hear me?"

He nods. Izzie sighs, and scrubs her face with her hands. She, Alex notes, probably looks worse than he does: all red eyes and exhaustion.

"You had an ulcer Alex: a gastric ulcer." His eyebrows flare at that diagnosis. Out of all the possible things he expected to come out of lying on the bathroom floor, this was most defiantly not one of them. _For one crazy moment, his doctoring left him and he thought that this was the cancer again, coming back to bite him in the ass for being such a dick to women_.

"But, I mean, the blood. I know that some hematemesis is common with ulcers, but not the amount that was happening."

"But when you factor in a GI bleed, the blood is all accounted for. We think the ulcer caused the bleed, and that the ulcer was caused by _H. pylori _and stress."

Alex snorts at the last bit. "Stress, Iz? You gonna believe that old wives tale?"

She laughs gently at him; clearly seeing through what he thought was an iron clad façade. "Get some rest, Alex. You're gonna have a lot of visitors later. And probably a stern talking to from Meredith about devising an easier way to make her clean the bathrooms." She gently kisses his forehead, touches his hand for a second before standing. She checks the IV bags, glances at the monitors before heading for the exit. She winks before leaving, closing the door behind her.

"Alex?" Bailey hasn't left yet, and he guiltily comes to the conclusion that he forgot about her while he bantered with Izzie. "I'll let you get some rest, but there's probably something that you want to know. I checked with your GP and he's confirmed what I believed. You're still in beautiful remission. This is in no way connected. You'll be okay. This isn't a relapse. You'll be okay."

Alex only lets his eyes water a small fraction in gratitude. He nods at her, and she nods back in understanding. He can deal with an ulcer, and a GI bleed and being on PPIs for the next few days. He'll deal with Bambi and Lexi and Izzie. He'll deal with Meredith's doe eyes and self pity party when she comes to complain about the state her bathroom is in, if only to masquerade her appreciation that he's okay and to protect him from understand of just how fucked up it was to see him like that on the floor.

But he knows that he wouldn't have been able to deal with the cancer again, if he had had to fight another battle alone. He wouldn't do it without Mr. Onser with the bad imitation Santa Clause laugh and the mantra that rings through Alex's head as he drifts back off into a medicated sleep.

_Boys will be Boys._


End file.
